3 Things learned R24, 2025 vs Fremantle

[1eyedog]

Croft will be good.

[DOG GOD]

1. If only Barrass and Battle nominated us

2. some tough decisions need to be made on a few players

3. we need more pace. And those with pace who have elite kicking skills.

[SonofScray]

1. Physical strength - we need more of it. Need to go train on a planet with higher gravity.

2. Speed. Greasy fast lightning speed. We need it. Even just one player as an outlet or go to for run and carry to break lines. Like JJ used to, but not him.

3. My year of goodwill towards our coach helped my enjoyment of footy but I’m going to be white knuckling the preseason and next year.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

1. We are a good competitive club which is more than what we were for many, many years. But we need to find a way to be more than that. Think Geelong, Sydney, Hawthorn, Collingwood - regular finals, often top 4. Battling for top 8 in the final game of the year is frustrating.

2. The defensive set up needs tweaking. We're far too aggressive for what is an extremely limited group. The amount of easy goals we cough up has been a trend that has plagued the Bevo years. It's about time that changes, if it doesn't, he won't be coaching much longer.

3. Cut the cord. JJ has been a wonderful player but we need to call it now, not a year later like we did with Duryea. I'd also add McNeil here - can't keep going back to a proven failed commodity, how often has he had less than 5 kicks in a game? Move on.

[Bornadog]

1. Physical strength - we need more of it.

Especially guys like Cleary, Davidson, Buss, Croft, O'Donnell, and Freijah

[bulldogsthru&thru]

1. We are a good competitive club which is more than what we were for many, many years. But we need to find a way to be more than that. Think Geelong, Sydney, Hawthorn, Collingwood - regular finals, often top 4. Battling for top 8 in the final game of the year is frustrating.

2. The defensive set up needs tweaking. We're far too aggressive for what is an extremely limited group. The amount of easy goals we cough up has been a trend that has plagued the Bevo years. It's about time that changes, if it doesn't, he won't be coaching much longer.

3. Cut the cord. JJ has been a wonderful player but we need to call it now, not a year later like we did with Duryea. I'd also add McNeil here - can't keep going back to a proven failed commodity, how often has he had less than 5 kicks in a game? Move on.

Re point 2. We re-signed him for 2 more even though it still plagues us.

[jeemak]

The reason we play high is to protect our defenders, not because we're a bunch of masochistic perverts who like this shit happening all the time. It looks horrendous when the pressure is down or the line goes too far and we get cut through, but what's the alternative method to protect the league's worst one on one defensive group? Maybe a super flood?

Has anyone thought what would happen if we backed our defenders and played a balanced numbers or defensive spring board game? None of the defenders would win a contest, we wouldn't get any clean ball to our runners and we'd get picked apart in the midfield turnover game.

We need better defenders, plain and simple, before we can consider moving away from stoppage/clearance and forward fifty repeat entry dominance.

[Grantysghost]

The reason we play high is to protect our defenders, not because we're a bunch of masochistic perverts who like this shit happening all the time. It looks horrendous when the pressure is down or the line goes too far and we get cut through, but what's the alternative method to protect the league's worst one on one defensive group? Maybe a super flood?

Has anyone thought what would happen if we backed our defenders and played a balanced numbers or defensive spring board game? None of the defenders would win a contest, we wouldn't get any clean ball to our runners and we'd get picked apart in the midfield turnover game.

We need better defenders, plain and simple, before we can consider moving away from stoppage/clearance and forward fifty repeat entry dominance.

I agree, however hasn't that always been Bevo's system?

I think it's the way we want to play. Defend high, get it in at all costs and keep it in. Good midfield groups that get ground ball like Freo, spread and overlap take that on and work against it.

How we go into a season with Lobb, JOD, Jones, Gardner, Bussingler as our key defensive options is the bigger long term recruiting issue. Two very old ex forwards, a cricketer, a backup and a guy who's probably borderline not up to it ! Barrass was targeted and so is Silvagni so clearly it's been realised. Maybe it's just a really hard position to recruit for.

I still don't understand why we don't play kick mark when teams get a run on. Slow d transition but i'll never see it in Bevos lifetime!

[Mantis]

1/ When the scoreline is pretty much rinse & repeat for all of our losses this year then I don’t think we learnt anything we didn’t already know.

2/ It’s a different mix, but the same issues remain.

3/ It’s 2026 or bust for Bevo. He needs to get it right or he has to go. Free hit this year, but he needs to get us into the top 6.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

The reason we play high is to protect our defenders, not because we're a bunch of masochistic perverts who like this shit happening all the time. It looks horrendous when the pressure is down or the line goes too far and we get cut through, but what's the alternative method to protect the league's worst one on one defensive group? Maybe a super flood?

Has anyone thought what would happen if we backed our defenders and played a balanced numbers or defensive spring board game? None of the defenders would win a contest, we wouldn't get any clean ball to our runners and we'd get picked apart in the midfield turnover game.

We need better defenders, plain and simple, before we can consider moving away from stoppage/clearance and forward fifty repeat entry dominance.

We've been doing it for years. If the reason for doing it was personnel then surely we'd have been way more aggressive bringing in some quality. Our defence sucks tho there's no way around it. We've known it for years yet somehow we've hardly addressed it. Even getting Jones in we surely knew it was only 2 years at most of quality given his age.

I agree that surely the coaches see it. What I don't understand is why it hasn't been addressed FOR YEARS.

[Bornadog]

We've been doing it for years. If the reason for doing it was personnel then surely we'd have been way more aggressive bringing in some quality. Our defence sucks tho there's no way around it. We've known it for years yet somehow we've hardly addressed it. Even getting Jones in we surely knew it was only 2 years at most of quality given his age.

I agree that surely the coaches see it. What I don't understand is why it hasn't been addressed FOR YEARS.

I don't agree, we have tried to address the key roles in defence since we brought in Jones. We recruited Buss, JOD, we sent Lobb down there, we also brought in Bramble.
They may not be the right players, but you can't say we didn't address it.

[doggies ftw]

The reason we play high is to protect our defenders, not because we're a bunch of masochistic perverts who like this shit happening all the time. It looks horrendous when the pressure is down or the line goes too far and we get cut through, but what's the alternative method to protect the league's worst one on one defensive group? Maybe a super flood?

Has anyone thought what would happen if we backed our defenders and played a balanced numbers or defensive spring board game? None of the defenders would win a contest, we wouldn't get any clean ball to our runners and we'd get picked apart in the midfield turnover game.

We need better defenders, plain and simple, before we can consider moving away from stoppage/clearance and forward fifty repeat entry dominance.

Disagree, they’re not the best group of defenders by any stretch but they’re on a hiding to nothing with the way they get left one on one with zero support and the ball rocketing through the middle of the ground. This leads to their terrible 1-on-1 stats - it’s not hard to kick to advantage of your forward when they’re one out with an acre of space.

How many times did we find Darcy or Naughty one out in space? We never do and it makes it a lot easier to defend. It’s always to a contest with multiple defenders working in tandem. Not one out hoping for a shit kick.

In saying that our defenders were overly shit yesterday and yes we need to try and upgrade them - JOD & Lobb are not built for the roles they’re playing. But personnel is far from the only issue this has been a staple in Bevos sides for years and it does not work against good sides.

Even when we halved a contest yesterday what happened at ground level? There’s no one there because all our defenders are up at half forward. Our ground level defence has probably been worse than our aerially defence this year - I wonder why? Maybe cos our backline consists of three of the most outside players in the comp in Dale, Bramble & JJ. It’s just crazy to think this will work - we had a chance to get Sellwood in who showed more defensive instinct than just about anyone on our list in 3 weeks but we snubbed it for some reason.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Disagree, they’re not the best group of defenders by any stretch but they’re on a hiding to nothing with the way they get left one on one with zero support and the ball rocketing through the middle of the ground. This leads to their terrible 1-on-1 stats - it’s not hard to kick to advantage of your forward when they’re one out with an acre of space.

How many times did we find Darcy or Naughty one out in space? We never do and it makes it a lot easier to defend. It’s always to a contest with multiple defenders working in tandem. Not one out hoping for a shit kick.

In saying that our defenders were overly shit yesterday and yes we need to try and upgrade them - JOD & Lobb are not built for the roles they’re playing. But personnel is far from the only issue this has been a staple in Bevos sides for years and it does not work against good sides.

Even when we halved a contest yesterday what happened at ground level? There’s no one there because all our defenders are up at half forward. Our ground level defence has probably been worse than our aerially defence this year - I wonder why? Maybe cos our backline consists of three of the most outside players in the comp in Dale, Bramble & JJ. It’s just crazy to think this will work - we had a chance to get Sellwood in who showed more defensive instinct than just about anyone on our list in 3 weeks but we snubbed it for some reason.

I'm glad you mentioned ground ball defence. It surely must be the worst in the comp. The absolute sense of dread I have when the ball hits the deck in our D50. Defensive 50 stoppages too. We either can't defend a tap to a running oppo player who streams into goal without a player near him (somehow it's usually one of their most threatening players too). Or the ball falls in our lap and we hack kick it out 40m from goal where inevitably there's an oppo player all on their own to take the mark.

Diabolical.

[doggies ftw]

I'm glad you mentioned ground ball defence. It surely must be the worst in the comp. The absolute sense of dread I have when the ball hits the deck in our D50. Defensive 50 stoppages too. We either can't defend a tap to a running oppo player who streams into goal without a player near him (somehow it's usually one of their most threatening players too). Or the ball falls in our lap and we hack kick it out 40m from goal where inevitably there's an oppo player all on their own to take the mark.

Diabolical.

Yeah the structure break downs are just crazy and way more to do with coaching than personnel. We never seem to be setup correctly. How can we have Naughty, Darcy & Croft in our forward half but no one available as a get out option for those blind kicks out of defence. Freo anilhated us tactically and with their plan yesterday. Absolutely walked all over us. That’s a failing on our coaches.

Not that I’m letting the players off the hook because we had about 3 that won their position on the day - but let’s not let the coaches get away with this, we were completely outclassed.

[Rusty12]

Not sure I am adding anything that has not already been said.

1 - These bad losses, against good teams, have a similar profile to them. Good coaching and leadership is to change these profiles, not show up to a press conference and confirm them, like it's new. When the profile is this bad, it is the system and personnel it has to be. I thought it was unfair of Bevo to put so much of it on the personnel he selects for the job.

2 - The performance of Freijah, in his 2nd Final (Basically), to go with his first last year, was just superb for a 19-year-old.

3 - This team need to turnover 6-8 players, within the best 26, to compete at this level.